Raynor HCA 2014-04
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/1/2014
Circa 1840, Autograph Letter Signed, by "Erasmus D. Drury," of Newburgh, NY, mentioning the Rebellion of Enslaved Africans aboard the Ship Amistad, and how they killed the Captain, etc., Good. Undated Autograph Letter, on integral mailing leaf with the red stamp NEWBURGH, NY, measuring 8" x 9-3/4", 3pp., with some absences and small holes due to insects and wax seal being opened, but the writing is very legible. Written to Mr. & Mrs. James Davis of Limestone Springs, South Carolina. Drury writes of a museum exhibit in New York that had the wax casts of the African Rebels' Heads who killed a captain on a ship - here directly refering to the famous Amistad Revolt of 1839! This historic letter reads, in part: "Dear Cousins - ... I can assure you that we both seen all we could, we went into the museum and there we spent an hour very busy looking at every thing semely. I wish you could have been with us at that time they had the wax of the slaves that killed the captain of the ship that they were in, and some of the rest of the crew and made the rest manage the vessel so as to get back to Africa, but at night and stormy weather they took the advantage, and went the other way until they got to this country. I suppose you read an account of it before you left home. And from the museum we went to one of my cousins in New York..." While the Africans were held in New Haven awaiting trial, a New Haven wax museum owner made wax life masks of the captive's heads and experts were called in to examine them. The wax figures then toured the East Coast during the trials. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1841 and with the assistance of John Quincy Adams, the Africans proved in court that they were not slaves and had been illegally captured and transported to America after the slave trade had been banned-they were eventually set free.
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